Tuesday, January 24, 2012

William Gowin/Gowan/Going is not the son of John Gowen & Mary Keife

Y-DNA has proved very useful in genealogy through the testing of male descendants to confirm the written genealogy.

Confirmed descendants of William Gowin/Gowan/Going who was married to Anester and who was living in 1752 in that portion of Lunenburg County, VA that later became Bedford County, and whose Revolutionary War veteran sons, Joseph, Daniel, and William Jr., and the children of William and Anester are documented and having moved to Madison County, KY in the early 1800s, have returned Y-DNA Haplogroup results of I2a2a1a1 (formerly I2b1a1) with further positive SNPs of M223, M284, L126, L137, and L369, also known as Isles-Scot.

Confirmed descendants of John Gowen and Mary Keife, daughter of Cornelius Keife, who were also living in the large county known as Lunenburg in Virginia, but a different district than the family noted above, and whose sons (one named William and believed to have a middle name of James), later moved into North Carolina, returned Y-DNA results of E1b1a. John Gowen is believed to be the descendent of Mihil, the African slave who obtained his freedom in the 1600s. The Y-DNA results of this Haplogroup are traced to Africa and would seem to support the connection documented.

This further proves that these two lines are not connected through male ancestry nor have the same progenitor and that there were two William's living in the same county with no relation to one another.